Supporting Students in Recovery on College Campuses

There are hundreds of thousands of students in recovery from substance use disorders (SUDs) on college campuses across the country. But unless you know them personally, you may not even realize they are a part of the student body.

“One reason they’re a ‘hidden population’ is that a lot of students in recovery will go to campus for as long as they have to be there and then leave as quickly as they can because college campuses have been referred to as ‘recovery-hostile’ environments,” said Dr. Eric Beeson, core faculty member at Counseling@Northwestern.

This is unfortunate, said Dr. Beeson, given the tremendous assets that students in recovery could be to their campus communities. Many students in recovery don’t want to be seen as a liability. “They need to be supported and invested in, just like anybody else,” he added.

But the growing movement to expand collegiate recovery programs (CRPs) is helping to ensure that institutions, faculty, and students are tuned in to the needs of this segment of the student population.

Dr. Beeson advises to start by debunking the biggest misconception about people in recovery—that they are still using drugs or alcohol and are trying to stop. In reality, people in recovery are generally abstinent from substance use and making tremendous life changes to promote their health, wellness, and contributions to society, he said.

Substance Use and Recovery on Campus

~2.7 million

full-time college students reported binge alcohol use in 2017

~1.8 million

full-time college students reported use of an illicit drug in 2017

~733,000

full-time college students met the criteria for an alcohol use disorder

~487,000

full-time college students met the criteria for an illicit drug use disorder

~840,000

full-time college students attending college in 2019 will be in recovery

~64%

of students who leave college and no longer attend do so for behavioral health-related reasons

In addition to the typical challenges that many students face during the transition to college, such as finding new friends and navigating life without parents, there’s a slew of additional hurdles that students in recovery face from the time they apply to college through graduation day.

Unique Challenges for Students in Recovery

Explaining academic and legal consequences of past actions.

Transitioning from a treatment setting to an academic setting.

Disclosing recovery status to faculty and friends.

Developing recovery support on or near campus.

Balancing identity as a student and as person in recovery.

Finding recovery-friendly social activities.

Managing triggers and peer pressure to use alcohol and drugs.

Relearning life skills like time management and budgeting.

Navigating stigma surrounding substance use disorders and recovery.

Source: Eric Beeson, core faculty member at Counseling@Northwestern.

Collegiate Recovery Programs—What Are They and What Do They Offer?

For some students, balancing academic pressures and recovery-focused efforts is too difficult to do alone.

“Often times people focus so much on their academics that their recovery suffers, or they focus so much on their recovery that their academics suffer,” Dr. Beeson said.

“The glue that holds it all together are the students themselves—students who have a dedicated space to work together, study together, and have recovery support meetings together,” said Kristen Harper, an expert and advocate for collegiate recovery and youth recovery supports.

Collegiate Recovery Programs

Only 35 colleges offered CRPs in 2012

> 145 colleges offered CRPs in 2016

2.4 M students now have access to recovery supports

Standards for CRPs Set by the Association of Recovery in Higher Education

In that article, Dr. Beeson and his colleagues reviewed the development and evaluation of a pilot project called eRecoveryZone, an online ally training program included in the Spartan Recovery Program at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. The goal of the program is to enable participants to better understand recovery-oriented language, serve as access points to campus resources for students in recovery, participate in a recovery-oriented system of care, be able to discuss personal messages of recovery, and promote themselves as allies.

In a study of people who had completed the trainings, Beeson and his coauthors found that the program helped participants better understand what recovery is, reduced stigma surrounding recovery, and increased self-reported ally behavior. He and his coauthors concluded that colleges and universities can benefit from adding similar online trainings for their students.

Note important dates or events that may be challenging. Ask, “We’re coming up on the holidays and that can be hard for anybody. How are you doing?”

Be There to Help

If someone is drinking again and they want to stop, help them access ER support. People can die from alcohol or drug withdrawal and need medical help and access to lifesaving medication such as naloxone, which can be used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

If you’re worried, ask if they’re suicidal. Shame and fear of failure can lead to suicidal thoughts, but people in recovery may be afraid to talk about it without being asked.

Help them find the words to ask for help. If they don’t know how to say it, tell them how: “I’m struggling with substance use or with chemical use.”

Offer to take them back to treatment. If they say they’ve slipped up, help them find an addiction counselor or other treatment setting.

With robust college recovery programs and peer and faculty allies, students recovering from SUDs can focus on getting their education, navigating this important period in their lives when they are developing self-identity, and achieving their full potential. It’s important for higher education institutions to always remember that like any other student, people in recovery bring assets and valuable experiences to college campuses that benefit the entire student body.

“I’d like to see recovery embedded in the fabric of higher education as a whole, so that when you go to campus, you don’t even think twice about recovery,” Rabolt said.